Election season is just around the corner, and now is the time for political candidates and commentators to start making their media rounds. Previous versions of this newsletter have used Edison Podcast Metrics data to chart the top podcasts with conservative or liberal content as well as the role podcasts played in connecting voters with potential candidates for the 2024 presidential election and the 2025 election in New York and New Jersey.
As the 2026 election cycle begins, we now look at how podcast audience size has changed for the Conservative podcasts who had the largest weekly audiences in Q4 of 2024.
While some shows have expanded their U.S. weekly audience, other titles have experienced podcast audience shrinkage. The Dan Bongino Show had the largest audience decline, dropping by 62%, which can partly be attributed to the break he took while serving as the Deputy Director of the FBI. The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast (-44%), The Ben Shapiro Show (-19%), and The Mark Levin Podcast (-16%) have also experienced audience loss since 2024. The Matt Walsh Show is the only title on this list that has kept its audience consistent from 2024 to 2026, showing no percent change.